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Research Proposal on The Napster Case: The ethical dilemma of music sharing in the Internet

BUS401, Section 3 Mr. Saeed Rahman (Sdu) July 7, 2010

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RESEARCH PROPOSAL ON

The Napster Case: The ethical dilemma of music sharing

in the Internet.
DATE: July 6th, 2010. TO: Mr. Saeed Rahman FROM: Kashef ul Hoda; Sanjay Paul; SUBJECT: Proposal to write a report regarding The Napster case and the ethical issues
surrounding the sharing of music in the Internet. The report will talk about the various accusations against Napsters (both legal and ethical) and how it has effected the music industry as well as file sharing business and all those who were related to it.

INTRODUCTION ..

The "Napster dilemma" is a problem that involves new technological concepts and redefinitions of old ideas. This is the case for many legal and moral conflicts that are arising with the outcome of new possibilities and options made accessible by informatics and telecommunications. The importance of these problems caught so much attention that in 1998, President Clinton signed the new Digital Millennium Copyright Act, where a good attempt of addressing these issues was done. By now, just after two years, some of its content already lost actuality. With the advancement of technology, new ethical questions keep arising that challenges the core principles and ideals of traditional and contemporary ideologies related to what is ethical, morally right or even legally accurate. The Napster case is a classic example of ethical questions rising from the advancement of technologies, and how intellectual properties have been affected by

103466844.doc 3 the rapid development of information technology (which is increasingly aiming to be free for all).

RESEARCH QUESTIONS ....

Q.1) What is Napster? Q.2) What was the business operation of Napster? Q.3) Who were Napsters Clients? Q.4) What are the ethical accusations against Napster? Q.5) How did Napsters business effect other businesses? Q.6) How did Napsters activities infringed the intellectual rights of artists/entities? Q. 7) How did Napster try to defend itself? Q. 8) How has the Post-Napster world of file/music sharing world been?

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.... We will depend on secondary sources. We wish to browse through the Internet and go through website, articles, journals, blogs and forums with the help of Google Search Engines. Our research paper will follow the general format of a research paper with the main sections like Introduction, Background, Analysis, and Summary of the Findings. The organization of this paper will be directed by research questions that would be answered in the aforementioned main sections.

TIME TABLE......

103466844.doc 4 I intend to follow the timetable as directed by the course instructor.

Date of submission of Report: 07th August 2010

REQUEST FOR APPROVAL......

I request your kind approval to my research proposal. Your suggestion or advice, if any, would be highly appreciated. With your guidance, I believe, my research paper will identify the ethical issues rising from the Napster case, and how it has shaped the ethical and legal conducts on the Internet.